Friends settled, why not me?

Hi all

Just wanted to vent really. I am 37, all my friends are settled, been in relationships for years, some married, kids... yet me im still like when i was 18! its really getting to me... i have had 2 real serious relationships in that time one for 3 and a half years one for 4... the second one, i was really messed around, she kept splitting up every few months, treating me bad but i would get back with her (probably when she didnt have anything else available)

But i seem to always go for the wrong types... always based on looks... I just cant seem to change and i want to.

I really put pressure on myself and suffer anxiety that i am going to be like this forever and not settled.
How can i change?! or just be content?

Maybe i need to talk to someone, im not sure, ive never done that before either

me too. the longer you wait, the harder it gets. at 60 i see it as impossible. i just watched a youtube on why this generation of men are opting out of marriage: there are lots of cool things to do now, and there is lots of divorce that can screw you up.
have you considered adventure travel, or other weird ways of living as opposed to the traditional family unit?

You can choose to change -you can become the right person to find the right person. But please don't compare yourself to your friends. I had and have a number of friends in their 40s who are never married and want to be, and when I was pregnant for the first time at 41-42 I had friends in their late 30s/early 40s who also were pregnant for the first time. I took the long way around for sure and got in my own way and was really tired of certain "smug married" comments. I think your inordinate focus on looks is getting in your way -does it have to do with wanting arm candy or somehow seeing value in having someone who looks pretty as your girlfriend? Chemistry is only partly based on looks and chemistry doesn't just happen with people who are objectively "tens". So get to the root of why you're picky about physical features.

I'm 39, more or less in the same shoes, though to me they seem like the right shoes. Most my friends started marrying/partnering up around 30, and now plenty are procreating. Which, sure, is a reminder that, somewhere along the way, I became an "outlier" to the norm. I became "unconventional" without ever having an explicit desire to buck norms. And, yeah, sometimes that's a bit isolating, a bit unnerving. A bit.

But while I wanted—and still want—a version of that, I knew I wasn't quite ready. I wanted to travel the world, establish a certain lifestyle, dig into myself. I very much like my alone time. I very much like hot fun. So I've done a lot of that, happily, trusting that the other stuff would come, or not, when the time was right.

And on the cusp of 40 it seems the timing is getting closer, maybe even here. I find myself drawn to a different type of woman, less drawn (and even repelled by) the types that really fired the pistons just a few years ago. Someone I could have lost a tilt-a-whirl year or two with once upon a time is now either a sizzly weekend or, more likely, a leftward swipe.

Where I was once way too self-involved to be a good partner—a good boyfriend, a good lover, sure; but a partner? The word didn't even exist in my emotional vocabulary. And then, suddenly, it did.

Probably I needed to get a little bored with myself so I could appreciate, and be a custodian to, the deep magic of another.

It just sort of...happened, is happening. Nothing to force. The person I'm seeing now, for instance: I know I would not have been ready for her even two years ago. She would have "freaked me out." Now she calms me down, fascinates me, and revs me up in all the right ways. She is "hot" in all the ways I needed at 22—I like looks too, nothing wrong with that—but also "hot" in ways I didn't have the maturity to appreciate until, well, now. Don't know where it's going, but aside from imagining what we'll do in the bedroom tonight it's equally sexy to imagine having a conversation with her years from now.

That, for me, is a paradigm shift. Nothing I could force.

Also? I don't know about you, but I can't say I find the people I know who partnered up young to be in very inspiring relationships. Some, sure. The majority, no. They don't have much sex, watch an inordinate amount of television. And no judgement in any of that, truly. But they don't, to me, radiate "happy," so much as "complacent." Slot me into their lives and I'd be bored in a month; some of them, I think, have been bored for years. Marriage and kids for the sake of marriage and kids has never appealed to me. Being inspired does.

That said, if you're finding yourself wanting all that while also chasing hot messes? Well, time to dig deep and start looking straight in the mirror. Water seeks its own level, which is to say that a hot mess will find a hot mess, so it might be time to do some soul cleaning. Therapy is great, was great for me. But also time. Exhale. You're still quite young. Nothing has passed you by.

thanks everyone for your replies! it means a lot! i would like to see a therapist face to face, but not sure what i should search for! not sure what it would be classed as when searching for key words! having never done it before it seems a bit confusing!

the second one, i was really messed around, she kept splitting up every few months,

The best way to change a course is to recognize it. So it makes no sense to view yourself as messed around by any situation in which you were a voluntarily participant. Repeatedly. For 4 years.

Consider yourself as having taken 4 years to learn something valuable about your own responsibility for your own choices rather than as someone who is (or was ever) at the mercy of anyone else's bad judgment. This can ensure that you don't repeat the mistake of sticking around for anyone who demonstrates a capacity for mistreatment--they will just do it again.